The present invention relates generally to the field of wireless communications, and more particularly to a method of and system for discovering and matching parties for wireless multi-party interactive sessions, such as games.
Today's mobile platforms often comprise multiple communication and radio interfaces such as wireless local area network (WLAN) (e.g., WiFi), Bluetooth, or cellular, for carrying real-time networked game play traffic in addition to wireless telephone and internet access. For players in close proximity to each other, it is preferred to run a multi-player game session over a low latency and high bandwidth network interface such as a WLAN (e.g., WiFi), which covers a range of about 100 m, or Bluetooth, which covers a range of about 10 m. Also, ad hoc peer-to-peer sessions using WiFi or Bluetooth are free of charge, whereas sessions over a third party network may involve charges. The emerging growth of high-bandwidth local area mobile communications capabilities and handsets will enable new opportunistic mobile gaming scenarios and businesses. For example, a mobile game player may discover and engage with other mobile game players opportunistically via high-bandwidth local wireless networks in places such as shopping malls, cafeterias, coffee shops, airports, schools, and the like.
The availability of multiple communication channels or radio interfaces on mobile devices for mobile casual game play can help a mobile user discover more game play opportunities but, at the same time, it presents new challenges. According to a recent study, the multiple wireless interfaces consume approximately 70% of the total power for a connected mobile device in idle mode. An overwhelming portion of the wireless interface power is consumed by the WiFi interface. For peer-to-peer (P2P) based opportunistic mobile game play, a game session hosting mobile device has to keep its WiFi interface powered up and wait for incoming connections. For an opportunistic mobile game player who wants to search for other available mobile game sessions via the WiFi interface, the mobile game player's mobile unit has to scan the air constantly or frequently in order to locate another nearby WiFi based game session. This type of P2P mobile opportunistic game session discovery and management is very inefficient in terms of power consumption.